and hope that the windows would hold, and that the demons would choose some other family. But they never did. They always took those who were weakest, those who were most afraid, those who had the most locks on their doors and who prayed most fervently that they would be safe, that they would be left in peace.
Vendela raised her left hand and held it over the stone.
Her wedding ring glinted in the light of the torch. Max had bought it for her in Paris. It was difficult to remove; after ten years it had almost grown into her finger, but she managed it in the end. She held the ring up to the sky in her right hand for a few moments, then placed it carefully in one of the hollows in the stone. She looked at the ring, and knew that she would never touch it again.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes and turned away from the elf stone she could feel the hunger and tiredness gnawing away at her stomach. She had simply rushed blindly out of the house in the middle of the night. She had to lean on the stone for support, and she stood motionless, staring at the horizon until the dizziness passed. Then she picked up the torch, pointed it at the ground ahead of her, and set off across the grass. Once she had passed the juniper bushes she lengthened her stride.
She was feeling better now. She couldn’t run in her boots, but she walked faster and faster, her footsteps drumming on the ground and the wind whistling past her ears.
Above her she could hear the sound of huge wings.
She slunk back across the alvar and down towards the coast like a cat. The grass and the bushes didn’t even touch her.
A few hundred metres from the quarry she switched off the torch; the batteries were almost spent.
Suddenly she saw another glow along the road. Car headlights. They slid slowly past her own house and stopped outside the Morners’ cottage. When the car’s interior light came on she could see that Per was driving, and hurried over.
He got out of the car, his movements stiff, and as Vendela approached he turned; he looked anxious at first, but relaxed when he saw who it was.
‘Vendela.’
She nodded. Without thinking about it, without the slightest hesitation, she held out her arms and went to him.
The night was suddenly warm.
Per put his arms around her, but only for a long hug.
Vendela let go of him eventually, with a deep sigh. ‘Come with me,’ she said quietly.
Per let out a long breath. ‘I can’t,’ he said.
Vendela took his hand. ‘It’s fine.’
She pulled him gently towards the door, as if the cottage were hers and not his.
58
Per opened his eyes; it was morning. He was lying in his bed, and someone was lying next to him, fast asleep. It wasn’t a dream.
But it was still a strange, dreamlike feeling to have Vendela Larsson beside him; since Marika left him he had slept alone every night.
When Vendela’s breathing had finally grown calm and even in the darkness, he had lain there beside her with his eyes open. He had felt good, but he had still expected a visit.
A visit from Jerry.
That’s what had always happened on the few occasions in the past when Per had slept next to a woman. He would gradually become aware of the heavy aroma of cigars in his nostrils, or he would sense that his father was standing in the shadows by the bed, grinning scornfully at his son.
But Jerry’s spirit stayed away tonight.
They got up at about nine o’clock, and Per made coffee and toast. This morning there was suddenly a whole range of topics they just couldn’t discuss, but the silence at the kitchen table was neither tense nor embarrassing. Per felt as he if knew Vendela well.
Then he had to go and visit Nilla at the hospital.
‘Can I stay here for a while?’ Vendela asked.
‘Don’t you want to go home?’
She looked down at the floor. ‘I don’t want to be there … I can’t cope with seeing Max at the moment.’
‘But we didn’t do anything wrong,’ said Per.
‘We slept together,’ said Vendela.
‘We kept each other warm.’
‘It doesn’t matter what we did … not to Max.’
‘See you soon,’ she said a little while later as they stood in the hallway.
‘Will you?’ said Per.
She gave him a fleeting smile as he closed the front door.
He walked to the car and breathed out slowly.
What had happened? And was it so bad, whatever it might have been? It was Vendela’s decision, and they had spent most of the time talking and sleeping, after all.
But Per’s life had become messier, and he felt as if this would influence Nilla’s chances in some way. Lengthen the odds.
Finding Markus Lukas would shorten them.
He took out his mobile and rang Directory Enquiries. A young woman asked how she could help.
‘Daniel Wellman,’ said Per, and spelled out the surname.
‘Which area?’
‘Malmo, I think.’
There was silence for a few seconds before she responded. ‘There’s no one there by that name.’
‘What about the rest of the country, then?’
‘No. There are a number of Wellmans, but no Daniel.’
Per thought about Vendela all the way to Kalmar.
As he stepped out of the lift by Nilla’s ward, he met a couple about the same age as him, a man and a woman walking slowly along the corridor. They looked exhausted, their eyes downcast.
The man was carrying a small blue rucksack, and Per suddenly realized that the couple were the parents of Nilla’s friend Emil. Presumably they had been to collect his things, and now they would be going home to an empty house.
Per’s warm memories of Vendela melted away. He slowed down as he approached Emil’s parents, but didn’t speak to them – he couldn’t say anything. When they passed him on their way to the lift, he just wanted to turn his face to the wall and close his eyes.
‘Hi Nilla. How are you?’
‘Terrible.’
Two days before her operation Nilla was in a foul mood; she wouldn’t even smile at her father as he sat down beside her.
‘You only come and see me because you have to.’
‘No …’
‘Because that’s what you’re
‘No,’ said Per. ‘There are lots of people I never go and see, all the time. But I want to see you.’
‘Nobody wants to see a person who’s ill,’ said Nilla.
